


Eggshells

by TheBraillebarian



Series: Phoenix Burning [5]
Category: Metalocalypse (Cartoon)
Genre: Asexual Character, Comfort Sex, Drug Use, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Trans Male Character, Trans Pickles the Drummer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29421276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBraillebarian/pseuds/TheBraillebarian
Summary: Vignettes and short pieces about Charles and Pickles.
Relationships: Charles Foster Offdensen/Pickles the Drummer
Series: Phoenix Burning [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2161272
Kudos: 3





	1. Hearthstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pickles having a one-sided conversation he isn’t aware of about things he doesn’t know.

It’s quiet in Charles’ office, peaceful and cozy in a way he’s only known since a Phoenix summer more than a decade ago. Pickles lounges on the office couch, legs warmed by the crackling fireplace.

“...third quarter staff shortages after the Carlsbad show...”

“Ya say somethin’, chief?”

Charles glances up from his laptop, eyebrow raised. “I don’t believe so, no.”

The words taste like consternation, chalky with a savory undercurrent. Pickles licks his teeth, nose wrinkling. Charles whispers something, continuing his musings on their New Mexico gig, lips unmoving. Pickles glances at the half smoked joint in his hand. 

“Must be some bad shit,” he muses before taking another drag. 

“It’s from the stockpile. Shouldn’t be any different from his usual. Perhaps I should contact supply.”

“I’m right here. Ya don’t gotta talk like I ain’t.”

Charles blinks and Pickles has a sharp sense of surprise, fear, a dropped glass shattering on unyielding stone. “I, ah. Didn’t say anything.”

“Is it happening already? That’s not right. It’s too soon.” A memory of hot sand scouring his face, the echo of water dripping deep under a vast sea. 

A desk drawer clicks open and Pickles perks up, tossing his joint in the fireplace. Charles almost never lets him have the good shit from his secret stash! He doesn’t bother to hide his excitement as he walks to the desk, bouncing a little on his heels. Just under the velvet rich taste of powder and leaf he feels the oily slick of guilt on the back of his tongue. 

“I’m sorry,” Charles says, lips firmly pursed, the lighter flicking closed in his hand. 

The whispers fade and Pickles sinks back into his own skin, shrinking until he’s nothing but the sound of fire in a hearth.


	2. Empty Hearth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pickles says goodbye.

Under his fingers the hand is cold. The shape is right, sword fighter’s callouses in their places, the wrinkles at each joint. There is no warmth or give. It’s like touching a statue and the cold seeps into Pickles’ skin. He strokes that frigid hand over a still breast and quivers.

They wiped the blood off his face, filled in the cuts and painted over the bruises. His lips are a little too red and the hair is wrong but it’s not going to matter when they burn the body. 

“Pickles?” Nathan puts a cautious hand on his shoulder. 

He swallows and decides fuck what anyone thinks. Pickles bends and lays a kiss on that cold brow. 

“Bye, Charlie,” he whispers. 

...

He wakes with the memory of that cold, unmoving hand etched in his skin. Beside him someone is breathing and Pickles spends a moment fighting the deep clinging mud of loss. The man in the coffin hadn’t been Charles but it’s difficult for his mind and heart to reconcilewith the impossible reality he’s found himself in. 

Charles is asleep on his back, hands resting on his muscular chest. It’s such a familiar sight, very much like the one which has haunted him for months. Carefully Pickles touches the hand rising and falling with every breath, its warmth sinking into his fingers. He leans up to press his lips to Charles’ brow, breathe in the smell of cologne and clean hair. 

An arm slides over his back, a sleep fogged sigh ghosting over his throat. Tears streak down his cheeks as if they’ve always been there, hot rivers tracing over grooves worn by eons of heavy rain. Still hating to cry where anyone can see, an old instinct he’s never given up, Pickles buries his face in Charles’ warm neck and sobs. 

One hand strokes his trembling back. The other, so familiar, it’s cold ghost still haunting him, squeezes his fingers, calloused thumb tracing the shape of his knuckles.


	3. Out of the Blue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grief unhinges us and I don’t think coming back from the dead would make that suddenly stop.
> 
> A follow up to Embers in Ash, but it stands on its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My last grandmother died yesterday (February 12, 2021) so I am forcibly being reminded of the strange ways grief screws us up. Inspired by trying to get food and bursting into tears/laughing because it made me think of an endearing quirk of hers.

Pickles has never been the sort to cry often and when he does it’s a sharp and ugly thing. Since his return from supposed death, Charles feels like he’s seen more tears in a few weeks than in the decades they’ve known one another. Knowing it’s because of him and how powerless he is to do anything against it serves to twist the knife that much further. 

They sit in a diner booth opposite one another, a lurid pineapple themed bandana hiding Pickles from the world. It’s the first date they’ve been on since Charles’ return and he’s been enjoying the normalcy of it, in as much as anything in their lives can be normal. 

“And, ah, the father says, ‘It’s called The Aristocrats’,” he finishes the old joke with a self depricating smile. 

The mayonnaise dipped frrench fry in Pickles’ fingers drops back to the plate as he lets out a wet laugh that ends on a gruesome sniffle. “Oh jesus,” he says, dragging his hands over his face, shoulders shaking. With a sick lurch Charles realizes the man is trying to laugh through burgeoning sobs. 

“Was it that bad?” he offers weakly. 

The silverware rattles as Pickles collapses on the table, head buried in his arms. Charles moves to sit beside him, draping an arm over his quaking back and pressing their thighs together. The muffled sound from Pickles is a travesty: helpless giggling laced with a barely contained keening whimper, like he’s trying not to scream, and the occasional wet snort of a frantic breath. It’s not long before Pickles starts to hiccup and he pounds his fist on the table to emphasize each one. 

“Charlie do ya-do ya remember...in Reno? And ya told that same damn joke only...only it was with the blind guy and the dead rat and I... I laughed so hard I puked on yer shoes and! And ya-ya said...! S-said...”The words snag in his throat. 

Charles remembers consigning those shoes to a hotel trash can and watching bad cable in his briefs with Pickles sprawled in his lap. He’d throw out a thousand pairs of overpriced shoes for that laugh, the way Pickles flushed from ears to chest with the gasping exertion of it and how such helpless mirth was always contagious. He smiles wistfully. 

“Yes. I remember.”

Pickles slams both fists on the table and shoves himself hard enough into Charles’ chest to knock the air from his lungs. On instinct Charles folds both arms around him. 

“Fuck!” Pickles thumps a closed fist over Charles’ heart, all laughter gone from his voice. “This is so goddamn stupid! Yer fuckin’...fuckin’ right here!”

“Yes. But, ah,” he clears his throat, hating the words. “Nine months is a long time.”

Charles tries not to entertain “whst ifs” but in these monents when the man he’s loved for more than twenty years is wiping snot on his jacket, he wonders if perhaps he should have stayed dead. There are no five stages of inverse grief, no manuals for what to do when your loved one comes back from the grave. He feels adrift watching the wounds of mourning tear open, bleeding their contents into his awareness with the razored knowledge that this is his fault. 

Pickles blindly fumbles a napkin from the dispenser and blows his nose. He gulps air like taking a drink on a burning day and crushes his cheek against Charles’ sternum. Charles rests his chin in Pickles’ hair and does his middling best to hold the pieces together in his arms. 


	4. To Have and to Hold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Handjob, comfort sex, crying, trans sex.
> 
> Mental health prompt turned spicy for ThisisVenereVeritas!
> 
> Prompt was “I love you no matter what your brain tells you” with the pairing of my choice, which was apparently Chickles! As is my wont, Pickles is trans here and Charles asexual.

Varying shades of neon light from a disco ball wobble over Pickles’ pale skin, sparkling in traces of glitter and drying sweat on the sheets. Charles winces at how small and frail the man seems, dwarfed by the empty bed and it’s rumpled maroon comforter despite the sprawl of his limbs. His eyes are closed and his face slack but there’s a feeling in the air of palpable loneliness.

“I, ah, saw your lady friends leaving on the camera feed,” Charles doesn’t know what to say short of blunt honesty. 

“Oh. Hey chief.” Pickles remains motionless save for the bobbing of his throat. “Yeah. They left fer a better party. Prob’ly with Skwisgaar or Nate’n.”

Charles drapes his jacket over the back of a chair, loosens his tie with a bit more force than is needed. Music throbs low and heavy from the room’s state of the art stereo system. A much heavier sigh rises from the bed. 

“I used to be the one wearin’ out the girls and wantin’ more, ya know?”

“I recall.” He toes off his shoes. 

“I dunno if I got even one of them off. They were nice about it, real sweet. But...” A thick swallow. “Thought I wanted to party, ya know? Thought I could...like back in the day...”

His dress shirt is still on but it can wait. Charles kicks free of his work slacks and climbs onto the bed to wrap his arms around Pickles, press lips to his clammy temple. In all his decades of study he has yet to find words to sooth the grief of passing time. All he can give is his presence, so he does. 

Pickles only moves to lay a hand on Charles’ protecting arm. He stares at the lights oozing over the ceiling and blinks rapidly. They lie still through one slow song and another until Pickles sighs through his nose. 

“Mind turnin’ this shit off?”

“Certainly.”

Reluctantly Charles leaves the bed to turn off the music. He unbuttons his shirt and drops it on the jacket. Pickles is clammy and cold, his goosebumps pebbling against Charles’ bare chest. 

“Did you cum?” 

“Dunno.”

“Would you like to?”

A noncommittal noise. Moving slowly to give Pickles thinking time, Charles presses to his side and eases one hand over chest and abdomen. 

“I’m gross,” Pickles mumbles. “Stink like shitty booze. Can’t even make a groupie cum. Ya don’t have to do this fer me, chief.”

He trails through stiff pubic hair only half dry and slides a finger down the length of Pickles’ dick. “Would you prefer if I stopped?”

“...no. I know ya ain’t really into my bullshit but yer damn good when ya wanna be.” A broken little laugh, half sob, bleeds out of him. “Could use somethin’ good right about now.”

Then good it will be, Charles swears to himself. As good as he can make it. 

“You’re, ah, ‘bullshit’ as you say, is part of who you are,” Charles presses a kiss to Pickles’ scruffy cheek. “And I, ah, rather like who you are. Love, in fact. Who you are. Regardless of what you may think of yourself.”

“Charlie,” he sniffles and swats at his eyes. “Jesus.”

Charles smiles against his cheek. “I mean it.”

“Yeah. I know ya do.”

Pickles turns to press his lips to Charles’. He tastes like cigarettes and stale beer and a stranger’s cum and none of it matters. Charles deepens the kiss, hungrily taking in the subtle flavors of skin and tongue, the heady spice of rekindling arousal. His fingers trace through cooling slick then slide easily into heat. He thumbs at Pickles’ dick with a practiced motion, breathing in the gasp it elicits. Sliding his free arm under Pickles’ neck, Charles hugs him close as the first tears fall. 

Fingers and thumb work in tandem, pressure and rhythm dragging a reedy whine from the base of Pickles’ throat. He shivers, legs parted and hips trembling, sniffling loudly. The lights shimmering on his cheeks are captivating and a travesty, highlighting parted lips and one glassy bead of water before it vanishes into red hair. Charles kisses the wet stain, tastes the salt and moves his fingers until Pickles’ hands are clenched white knuckled in the sheets. The man was already close and it’s not long before he sucks in a tight breath, body arcing and taut, teeth gleaming white in the dimness. 

“Charlie?” Barely a whisper, body twitching and wet around the fingers inside. “I could really use a hug.”

Charles pulls his hand away only long enough to press it to Pickles’ back and roll him tight against his chest. 

“Nobody wants to be with me,” Pickles whimpers into his collarbones. 

“I do.”

“Yeah...?”

“Yes. Always.”

He rubs circles over Pickles’ back and holds him tight. Charles drapes a leg over one hip, gently nudging Pickles into a tangle of limbs. An arm droops over his ribs, fingers splaying in the small of his back. Even while crying, Pickles is fidgety, his fingers playing with the elastic band of Charles’ boxers. Snot and tears pool sticky in his chest hair and Charles can’t bring himself to care.

“Gahd,” Pickles swallows thickly. “I fell asleep, Charlie. Me! And when I woke up, they were leavin’. All quiet like they didn’t wanna wake me up.” A low, derisive sound. “What happened to me?”

“Not to speak ill of your guests but, ah, perhaps they weren’t the scintillating company they led you to believe.”

The laugh that startles out of Pickles makes Charles smile. “Aww. Love when ya get all defensive. Talkin’ shit to defend my honor. Yer sweet.” He lifts his head for a tender kiss. “Thanks fer comin’ to my rescue. Sahrry I kinda made a mess on ya.”

Charles reaches for the comforter and pulls it over them. “Nothing a shower can’t fix. Tomorrow.”

“Sounds fun. Can I come?”

“Consider it scheduled and,” he dips his hand down to squeeze a bare ass cheek, “events suitably planned for.”

“Gahd I hate how sexy yer events planning shit is.”

“If it, ah, works, why change?”

Just as he’s beginning to drift away with the lights and the steady rhythm of Pickles breathing in his arms the man stirs. 

“Charlie?” He feels the word on his skin, sleep fogged and warm. 

“Yes?”

“Ya mean it? Will ya be here when I wake up?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it’s late?”

“Even if it’s late.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Charles drifts into sleep with his lips on Pickles’ brow, lulled by the feel of him in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> I yell abigail this show and sometimes post art at [metalrat](https://metalrat.tumblr.com/).


End file.
